Orc Hordes of the King's Forest [recap thread]
Amber_Scott
Member Posts: 513
Here in the office we've decided to start a 5e game. Most of us haven't played 5e yet and some of us have never played an actual tabletop game (shocking, I know!). So I volunteered to DM and I'll be running the Beamdog game on Fridays. Some day we hope to stream our sessions, but for now we're just getting our sea legs (dice legs?). I thought there might be some interest in hearing recaps of our sessions, so that's what this thread is for.
CAST LIST
@PhillipDaigle as Bort Flametoot, green dragonborn wizard
@AndrewFoley as Huzzah!, gnome bard
Alex as Bang-Bang, half-orc bard
@ScottBrooks as Edisum, human sorcerer
Zach as Carp, human rogue
Jason as Willers, human fighter
@KeithS as Egbert, dwarf monk
Feel free to comment or ask questions. If you're a player and want to post character stuff, that's cool too.
CAST LIST
@PhillipDaigle as Bort Flametoot, green dragonborn wizard
@AndrewFoley as Huzzah!, gnome bard
Alex as Bang-Bang, half-orc bard
@ScottBrooks as Edisum, human sorcerer
Zach as Carp, human rogue
Jason as Willers, human fighter
@KeithS as Egbert, dwarf monk
Feel free to comment or ask questions. If you're a player and want to post character stuff, that's cool too.
Post edited by Amber_Scott on
15
Comments
Backstory given to the PCs: A call for adventurers has gone out in the Dalelands. West across the Thunder Peaks, in the kingdom of Cormyr, orcs have begun marshalling in a forest near Arabel. A bounty has been raised for anyone who wishes to claim the title orc-hunter.
You set out from Ashabenford two days ago, on your way to Cormyr. After crossing the Thunder Peaks you'll make your way to the city of Arabel. As yet, you don't know much about each other. You've banded together for strength and safet. Bandits sometimes prey in the mountains and they're unlikely to attack a group as large as yours.
Today your fortunes took a turn for the worse. While foraging in the woods, a heavy storm broke with little warning. The sheets of rain obscured your vision and you quickly became turned around in the dense forest. You wandered for what seemed like an hour, trying to find the road while the storm worsened.
Now lightning has begun to crack so close it seems almost on top of you. You need to find shelter, and fast, before one of you is injured or killed.
Then, during a lull in the rain, one of you spots a structure in a clearing ahead. You push on, hoping to find someplace dry with a roof to protect you from the lightning. Now you stand before a two-story hunting lodge, obviously a noble's woodland retreat. The windows are shuttered and the front door stands closed beneath a sheltering overhang.
Bort lit a fire in the hearth with his magic while Huzzah!, always excited and curious, ran to the tall lumpy object and whipped the sheet off. Thunder boomed and lightning crashed, reflected in the glassy eyes of the taxidermied owlbear. At the same moment, one of the iron lanterns hanging on the wall flickered on without any intervention by the adventurers.
Before anyone could investigate the magically-lit lantern, Bort decided to play a prank on Huzzah! and used mage hand to rock the owlbear statue slightly. Everyone freaked out. Carp grabbed the statue and tried to throw it out the window, but it was far too heavy and just bounced off Egbert, the monk. Edisum (I think) lit the statue on fire and Willers started stabbing it. Meanwhile, the lantern light (which was really a will-o'wisp) began shocking Huzzah!. Eventually the travelers killed the wisp, extinguished the owlbear statue (now leaking stuffing and singed, with a damaged wing), and put it back in its place. Bang-Bang and Carp even replaced the sheet they'd claimed as their treasure.
The travelers explored the rest of the lodge for any dangers. Upstairs, Bort, Egbert, and Edisum found a broken window through which a flock of stirges had entered seeking shelter. The hungry stirges attacked but Bort killed most of them with his poison breath. Downstairs, Huzzah!, Carp, Bang-Bang, and Willers found a secret door in the cellar. It was trapped with an exploding alchemical vial, but Carp found and disarmed the trap with a natural 20. He extracted the explosion potion and hid it away for later use.
Behind the secret door, some rat warrens had collapsed in the soggy earth and opened into the cellar. Four giant rats faced the party. Huzzah! spoke to them with his forest gnome ability to speak with small animals and managed to convince the rats they meant no harm. Carp fed the rats with some of his rations and the party claimed the casks of brandy, some weapons, and a bear trap they found in the room.
Back upstairs, the party regrouped and set watches for the night. About an hour (short rest) later, there was a knock on the door and a traveler pleaded for shelter. Despite the party's precautions, making the traveler disarm and quizzing him on his story (Traveler: "I'm soaked to the bone!" Huzzah!: "Well, it is raining. His story checks out."), they nonetheless fell victim to a bandit ambush as soon as they opened the door. Four bandits came in the front, and three that had scaled the outside of the building came in through the broken window and flanked the party when they came downstairs. A fierce battle ensued but the adventurers triumphed and even took one bandit prisoner. (Bang-Bang tried to steer the giant rats in the basement into the combat, hoping they would attack the bandits, but the frightened creatures panicked and one got the killing blow on Egbert the monk. Fortunately the party was able to revive him.)
The prisoner confessed that their leader had overheard the party's plans as they assembled in Ashabenford. Wanting the orc bounties and glories for themselves, the bandits had tailed the party. The bandits briefly lost the party in the storm, but when they came upon the lodge they decided to eliminate the competition. The party left the bandit locked up in the basement (though he will easily be able to escape once they leave) and continued on towards Cormyr.
Or is he going to turn up as a villain later in the story?
Surprised you didn't mention Edisum arranging for Huzzah!'s hat to glow so everyone could see.
Or how Bort did some woo-woo and the hat temporarily burst into flames that he tried to blame on Edisum.
Or Bang-Bang's penchant for taking scalps.
Or Willers' inability to roll decent to save his life (nearly literally.) Also, tables have developed an extreme dislike for Willers, at least the table in the lodge did. Huzzah! got along well with the table, possibly because he was hiding underneath it rather than trying to jump overtop of it.
Or Bang-Bang's dressing up in ladies' clothes found upstairs.
Or Huzzah!'s brilliant bear disguise.
Or Bang-Bang using sealing wax to attach scalps to his head.
Or Bort's assuming the mantle of leadership or at least the mantle of the guy who's taking interesting-looking serpent rings without consulting with the rest of the party.
That was an interesting evening.
Gnomes! Gotta love 'em.
This is the note Huzzah! left behind after the party left the lodge we'd taken shelter in:
"To The Owners of this Wonderful Cabin,
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for the shelter your cabin provided me and my colleagues from inclement weather this past night. While the evening was by no means uneventful for my friends and I, it was certainly a good deal drier thanks to your lodge's protection.
You should know that the entrance to your storage chamber in the basement was dangerously flawed, and might well have engulfed someone trying to enter in a deadly explosion. Have no fear, though, we fixed that for you. As you weren't using them, we also partook of your supplies--I'm afraid your wine is just this side of vinegar, but the casks of sherry in the store room were delightful.
You'll likely not be pleased to learn that a variety of wildlife has taken up residence in your cabin as well. The giant flesh-mosquitoes have been thoroughly and, I regret to say, messily slain, but the giant rats that dug into your cellar are alive and well. If you should cross paths with them, I assure you they're perfectly harmless little beasts--just feed them some of the jerky in your kitchen and you'll have friends for life in Harvey and Maurice (I named them Harvey and Maurice, by the way.)
You may have noticed your cabin is not entirely as you left it; nor indeed is it entirely as we found it, thanks to the enthusiastic exertions of my friends Bang-Bang and Willers, as well as an attack by a number of bandits. I sincerely regret any damage your property may have sustained during our stay here.
As we were raided by bandits inside the cabin, I am, I think understandably, reluctant to leave any payment behind without someone to guard it. However, should you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Ashabenford, please feel free to seek me out, as I should very much like to compensate you for any losses you might have incurred on my or my friends' account.
Yours very truly,
Bort Flametoot (Dragonspawn)"
Then Huzzah! saved some travelers' lives, explored a cavern, didn't set off a trap that threatened to bury half the party in rock, fought some featherghosts and then a gargoyle, and saved the life of a birdman I'm calling Chesty because I don't have my notes in front of me and forget exactly what his name was. But I'll let the Beambard tell you about that...
This is Episode 1. They are currently up to Episode 16.
The session began last Friday with the following read-aloud text (that I wrote): The Moonsea Ride, the easiest way through the Thunder Peaks, has been buried in a mudslide due to the recent torrential rains. This happens from time to time and teams from Tilford and Shadowdale will eventually clear it out, but not for weeks. Until then, narrow trails that span the range are the only method of passage. You have no choice but to venture onto these trails and hope your numbers and your skill carry you to the other side.
The first day's travel goes smoothly. By the time you've made a day's progress and rested for the night, you've hammered out traveling details like marching order and watch schedule.
@phillipdaigle : "That doesn't sound like us at all."
After some discussion the party agreed on three three-hour watches with two people per watch, but no real marching order (save that Huzzah! was inevitably in the lead, rushing from one point of interest to the next). On the second day the PCs were making good progress through the mountains when they heard screams for help. Carp climbed up on a ridge for a better vantage point while Huzzah! rushed heedlessly ahead. The PCs discovered a sister and two brothers traveling from Arabel had stopped on a look-out point for lunch and one brother had fallen over the cliff when the unstable ground slid away. He was lying on a ledge 20' below, unconscious.
Despite the PCs' generally unhelpful nature, they agreed to send Carp down to rescue the young man. During the rescue operation, Carp noticed a cave entrance hidden on the cliff face. The PCs healed up the young man and sent the travelers on their way, Bort trying unsuccessfully to get a reward out of them. The sister explained their parents had been slain by orcs on a recent raid and they had left with their meager possessions to stay with relatives in Shadowdale.
The PCs rappelled down (only a few of them failed their Athletics checks and Dexterity saves and took some bruising damage--Huzzah! fell for sure and Carp caught him with a dazzling display of reflexes and strength. "THAT WAS AWESOME can we do it again???" Huzzah! shouted) but hit a snag when Bang Bang wanted to be the last to go and Bort was afraid the minute the whole party got down into the caves they'd be stranded by bandits or enemies. In the hunting lodge, Bang Bang had shown a predilection for locking up exits behind the party so no one could flee and Bort was also afraid Bang Band was going to find a way to strand them on the ledge. Finally after a long, LONG argument everyone got down the cliff.
No sooner had the whole party assembled on the ledge and inside the cave when Bort spotted orcs looking down on them from above. "I KNEW IT!" he shouted in frustration. However, the orcs proved to be illusory and soon vanished, a mystery not yet solved.
The PCs entered the cave and found the scene of a massacre within. They followed bloody streaks to the east and came into a large cavern with a low stone wall on the far end and strange wooden racks along the walls. A pile of bodies lay in the middle of the room, and as Bang Bang began scalping them (it's a hobby), everyone saw they were humanoid birds. "Those wooden frames are perches!" Bort exclaimed in satisfaction. Huzzah! went to examine the wall and found a nest behind it, but all the eggs within had been deliberately smashed. As the party debated who would be cruel and evil enough to do such a thing, ghostly feathery shadow whirlwinds rose up from the smashed nest and the pile of bodies. The adventurers fought valiantly against the shadows, and Carp even scaled the wall and leaped down from a ledge, twin daggers flashing, to the applause of Huzzah! Once Willers the fighter started rolling above a 4 he quickly dispatched the shadows, aided by the continual ray of frosts issued by Edisum the sorcerer.
Once the shadows had been killed, the heroes took a short rest in the abattoir and then moved down the other passage. They found a common room in which was another scene of carnage, along with a mural on the east wall that had been deliberately defaced, scratched up and streaked with clay and blood. Willers examined the mural and was able to identify a large golden wing, probably of some fantastical bird like a roc or phoenix, as well as something that looked like a wizard's staff with rays of light coming from the top. Just then Edisum, who had specifically been looking at the ceiling, noticed a gargoyle hiding among the shadows. The gargoyle dropped down and attacked, dropping Bang Bang to unconsciousness in two rounds with its savage claws. The party surrounded the creature and Egbert Rockpuncher, the dwarf monk, earned the right to his name. After a protracted battle the brave heroes finally slew the gargoyle, though several were wounded.
In the far corner of the room the adventurers found a smaller cavern filled with adult nests. One of the birdfolk there was still alive, though barely. Huzzah! healed his injuries (Bang Bang had already been stabilized), and the birdfolk regained consciousness. He told the party his race was called aarakocra and his name was Chalasast. "Several days ago," he said, "one of our scouting parties spotted a gargoyle aerie to the northwest. They must have just nested there as we had never seen them before, and gargoyles are our mortal enemies. After a brief battle our scouts escaped, but a gargoyle must have followed them back here. They...they came in force. They slew us all and took our treasure back to their aerie."
@ScottBrooks as Edisum was compelled to point out the gargoyles didn't slay ALL the aarakocra, and Chalasast was forced to concede the point.
Bort became immediately disinterested in the aarakocra's story and claimed the gargoyle aerie was too far away to investigate, even though it's literally on their path. The rest of the party argued about how likely it would be that they could take on a whole nest of gargoyles when one had given them such trouble. Chalasast said he was going to fly south to join another aerie where his kin lived, and told the PCs that if they could recover the aarakocras' treasure they were welcome to it. Huzzah! watched Chalasast fly away with some delight, and then the party bunkered down in the entrance cave for a long rest.
This week: The thrilling conclusion to INTO THE THUNDER PEAKS!
I helped him up afterwards, but the lesson was clear: don't start none, won't be none
At the moment I'd say Bang-Bang's in the greatest danger of attracting the party's ire. When it can't be avoided, Huzzah! will still fight to save his friends and he's usually pretty happy to check things out in advance of everyone else arriving. Bang-Bang, though... Well, to the best of my recollection, over the five hours we've actually played, Bang-Bang has:
-not raised a weapon in defense of the party
-run away from pretty much every fight, only to return when it's over seeking to scalp the losers
-actively worked to cut off his own party's escape routes during a combat, and
-consistently refused to explain why he's doing any of it
Even Huzzah!'s getting a little frustrated with the half-orc's inscrutability, and Huzzah! doesn't frustrate easy. That said, Bort seems to like him because he's easy to manipulate ("Hey, Bang-Bang, there's a dark shadowy cavern over there that I've never been in but which is full of eminently scalpable heads. How about you dash madly into the darkness and see what happens?") Someone floated a theory that Bang-Bang's a pacifist, but if so, he's a pacifist that collects scalps and has no problems cutting a defeated but still living enemy's finger off.
Bang-Bang's just weird. Even for a half-orc.
Bort has tamed Bang-Bang because I promised him a mountain of scalps if he follows my orders. His first mission, after I cast "Light" on his hat, was to blindly run down the corridor until he ran into danger. Luckily for Bort, the first room he found had ample birdmen scalps. Hopefully Bort's luck holds out.
The dark underbelly of starting a game at work. No one will let me take Fridays off anymore.
He also climbed a fighter, assisted in what might possibly be the worst ambush attempt in the history of the Forgotten Realms*, acquired a golden feather and several potions that promise some entertaining pyrotechnics in future sessions, watched Karp successfully ride a gargoyle, and started getting good with his crossbow.
*Which nevertheless managed to work--almost everyone in the party other than Huzzah! and Bang-Bang {"The Bait"} rolled between 3 and 6 for their stealth, but the enemy only managed a 2 on their perception--the sight of Huzzah! and Bang-Bang gave it a negative modifier for surprise, even though they weren't trying to hide and in fact Huzzah! was actively waving and whistling to get its attention. Mind you, Huzzah! was holding hands with a half-orc in a dress with a human scalp sealing waxed onto his head. I can see where that might be a touch disorienting.